I cannot stand to feel because my ocean heart suddenly comes to life beneath the full moon of someone to love. My blood changes, my skin changes, my life becomes a series of goosebumps and the swallowing back of the urge to cry. Alone, I am a strong wall whom very few can climb; but those who make it within my fort make me paranoid my stones are crumbling to pieces. I love to fall in love with every waking moment of someone’s existence, and to know what it is like to touch God’s face because it’s when I’m touching his. But I hate the monster it wakes within me, one scarred and scared that this one, too, will climb in only to walk away, leaving only ruins of what once stood so proud. This time, I am different; my whole fell apart, leaving me to resurrect the foundations and start all over. I have built myself back up, growing towards sunlight like a plant, my pride growing brick by brick, so sure I was leaving the beasts behind. But a higher wall, rather than making me stronger, has left me looking down at a much larger possible fall from grace. I’m so aware of my own ridiculousness that my shortness of breath feels like I’m drowning in frivolity, and when I step outside of myself and look back in, I know I am merely an old man in a bomb shelter waiting for a disaster that may never come. But it all feels so real when I am with him, that I feel stuck in this what-if nightmare fantasy when I am not. It’s been so short a time, I can hardly believe how wrapped up I am in my own thoughts, how much my fingers bled as I wrote this, how hard I had to try to remember who I was just a few days ago. I am a strong wall, but I am scared shitless.